


Like a Bright Exhalation in the Evening, part 8

by raedbard



Series: Like a Bright Exhalation in the Evening [8]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-30
Updated: 2007-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/pseuds/raedbard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are encounters that mustn't wake the cows, serious conversations, lots of rain, deceit, a fearless faith, and the promise of most good things coming to an end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Bright Exhalation in the Evening, part 8

**Author's Note:**

> From 3.1 'Manchester part 1' to 3.10 'Bartlet for America'.

1.

Late in Manchester, New Hampshire, in a big house with many doors and rooms and secrets, downstairs in the kitchen, two men are fighting with a few pieces of paper and the form of one thousand words. There is a pot of cold, stale coffee on the big kitchen table and the ashes of three times the long-ago-agreed limit of cigars in a saucer which no longer has a corresponding cup. One man sits at the end of the table with his back to the door, the other at its head, with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up past the forearms.

"I really hate that guy," Toby says, all one big sigh.

Sam smiles. "You camouflage it so well."

"He's an asshole."

"I'm not disagreeing with you."

"It's like asking the President's granddaughter to write the speech, or that guy in the copy room -- "

"Toby."

"Anyway," he sighs again. "I really hate him."

"He's just doing the job he was asked to do, Toby."

"I did not ask him to do anything at all."

"No."

He sighs. Sam feels the ripple in the air from across the other side of the room.

"We're no closer than we were a week ago. I'd say rip it up and start again if the thing wasn't two days away. Or one now." He sighs.

Sam tries to smile again. "It's fine."

"It's not."

"It's late, Toby. It's really really late."

He looks up, and Sam watches as his eyes shift down, across the pad in front of him and the words that do not yet add up to a speech. "Yeah."

"Can we go to bed?"

"In the President's house? No, I'm not sure we can."

"Well. I didn't actually mean that."

"No?" Toby says, his eyes glinting.

"No."

He shrugs, very slightly. "Okay."

"Toby," he says, and hates the hint of a whine in his tone.

"Uh huh?"

"Everybody's asleep, right?"

"You can't be suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"Make it quick?"

"Sam."

"Please?"

"You're thinking maybe that the table looks sturdy?"

"Actually, no, I wasn't. But I am now."

"Sam!" he hisses, his breath cutting through the air, making Sam shiver.

"Shhh," he says, smiling. "Someone will hear us."

"Okay, okay. But not in the house. Come outside."

"Outside?"

"Sure."

"Toby, you're - and I think you actually are - allergic to the great outdoors."

"Look, just direct me the opposite way from the poison ivy and the garter snakes and we'll be fine."

"You'll fall in the wheat thresher. Or I will."

"It'll be you. Trust me," he says, darkly.

"Okay."

"Okay," he says, getting up from the table. "Come on."

Outside, Sam can see the stars. And it's beautiful, he thinks; like a childhood in a cheap novel, like one of those movies about the end of the world. And maybe it is, somehow, the end of their world. Because if this doesn't work, these next few months, they'll all be looking for new jobs come the New Year. Sam knows which of them will be fine, in the end (Josh, CJ, even Leo, most likely, though he will hate his failure to go down with the ship, and himself) and which of them will not (the President, who has found that even small sins matter - something he should have known from long ago - and Toby, who found his winner and will never get another one). And the only upside he can find to that, the only dirty little shine on the underbelly of the uncovering of their secret, is that maybe, just maybe, when it all ends - _because_ it has all ended - he will get to keep ... this.

Toby has taken hold of his hand, just to make him walk a little faster through the grass which is already spattered with a hint of dew, Sam thinks, but his hand in Toby's all the same. It's warm, it always is - Toby's body is one of the warmest Sam has ever encountered and he wonders if he will ever be able to do anything with that knowledge, whether it will slip into poetry somehow, but doubts it will. His hand is warm and strong and pulling on Sam's hard enough that he worries, for a moment, that he will fall. But he doesn't; Toby wouldn't let him.

They make for the fence that overlooks the land, where the President comes to stand in the mornings with his enamel mug of coffee and his anger. Maybe Toby is thinking that if they are going to fuck on this land, it would be as well to do it somewhere that is Jed Bartlet's entirely, and thereby not go any further into denying what they have done. Maybe he just wants something sturdy and silent to bend Sam over. But they stop there either way, with the moon over the horizon and Toby's head still full of words which aren't working. They stand in front of the land, looking at it more than they look at each other, his hand in Toby's and Toby's hand in his.

Maybe if he apologises, maybe the numbers change, maybe it won't be as bad as they all think it will be. Maybe they'll forget, and maybe the People will as well. Maybe the Spanish Armada will come floating down the Potomac on election day. Maybe they are all hoping, silently, to fail, because it gets them out of this goddamn awful mess. Or maybe the only one hoping is Sam, who feels like he knows already - pushing so hard for an apology to be put into the speech that has about a hundred good words and nine hundred rotten; pushing hard because he's so afraid that without a simple 'I'm sorry', the whole thing will be all for shit. So afraid. So how come he feels like clutching onto Toby for dear life, like this will be the last, the only, the goodbye; that something will change in their luck that means anything more will become impossible.

He's almost diffident when he leans in, completely silent in the night and his face dark even in the moonlight. Sam closes his eyes before it is absolutely necessary, before Toby's lips touch his, so the last thing he sees, the thing that stays in his eyes once they are closed, is the gentle tilt of Toby's head: the asking. The kiss is gentle too, of course, or starts out so: Toby still tastes of frustration and stale coffee, and anger (and anger is always there, Sam thinks it is what he tastes of more truly than anything else, always there, just a little hint of bitterness on the tongue). But he's warming up, and soon it'll be okay, for quarter of an hour anyway, for a bright flash of seconds; soon it'll be okay. Toby's hand, the back of his hand, brushes down across the front of Sam's shirt - blue chambray, because he felt like he wanted to be the kind of man who wears such things this morning - like he wants to feel the softness of the material. Maybe he does.

"Toby ... "

"Shhh," he says. "You'll wake the cows."

Sam smiles, laughs almost, and his head dips and his forehead touches Toby's, and then they kiss again and for a moment full of deception, it's all okay.

2.

_"Yeah. And I'm gonna win."_

Josh feels the lightning strike. He can hear nothing but rain and facile questions and the low rumble of thunder. His face is cold and wet and numb from the spit of the rain and the cold seems to have crept into his brain; the spread of black ice and frostbite. He can't think of anything but the words of his statement against big tobacco and how the two sets of lies sound the same, as lies do. But the words explode with the flash of what could have been a camera bulb, or a lightning flash, or a smile, easily given. And there is nothing in Josh's head but the promise: game on.

The world split open, and five words to put it back together again. CJ doesn't feel much like laughing, though she has had the words of Humpty Dumpty quietly dancing in her head for the last few weeks. She smiles down at the polished floor of the State Department building and tells herself: if I don't look up, if I keep my eyes low, if I listen and pray, maybe it can all stay unmoved: the world in that moment. But she uncurls her fingers from the fist they have made, and raises her head.

Sam loses everything but the light of two men, wet through with storm and rage and outlined in flashes of light, both standing with hands in pockets and heads raised, mouths set. He looks up at one, then across at the other and closes his eyes to hear the answer, and its companion sigh. Then he opens his eyes, and smiles.

Toby feels faith curl warmly in the palm of his hand, and for a moment he believes, with perfect faith. Answers are clear and easy and set, and nobody was asked to lie. He feels the shift move through his chest in the click and flash of cameras and the three seconds it takes for every right hand in the place to raise into the air. He feels the sound waves thicken and constrict around his chest and holds his breath as Jed Bartlet opens his mouth. It is as he lets out that breath, in one long silent exhalation, that he remembers the storm outside.

*

"We're losing the motorcade, Toby! Come on!"

Josh yells from the car. He raced over the road with small regard for his personal safety, waving his arms madly in the rain. His hair has soaked down low on his head and he uses his sleeve to wipe the water from his eyes, with his other arm holding the door of the car open for a woman Toby cannot clearly see. Josh's shoes dance in the puddles, matching the odd rhythms of the rain in his impatience to be gone, after the President. Toby shakes his head, very slightly and shrugs his shoulders.

He is standing in the doorway, watching people who cannot be reporters but are neither owners of West Wing offices stream into the street. The car lights of the parts of the motorcade still left behind are flashing blue and red in a pattern Toby's mind cannot make sense of. The wet sidewalk gleams with the distributed glow of the overhead lamps. Toby watches the cars start to leave, standing in the shadow.

"Come on!" Josh says, holding both hands open in the rain.

"We're going to walk," Sam calls out. He is standing behind Toby's shoulder, and Toby doesn't think Josh can see the hand Sam has pushed into the small of Toby's back or see anything to suggest that the rub of Sam's knuckles is tingling down Toby's thighs and upsetting the balance of his hips.

"Because you enjoy the rain so much?" Josh yells. "Come on - get in the car!"

"We're gonna walk!" Sam yells over the sound of the rain. Toby thinks the road seems wider now than it was when they arrived. He's not sure he can walk anywhere.

"Pneumonia is not a good addition to our platform right now, Sam." Josh is bouncing a little on his heels, but he is what could pass for happy, Toby thinks; he is back in the game. He's coming back across the road now, and everything in his body language says: what the hell?

"We'll walk, Josh," Toby says, and although he says it softly he knows it carries under the rain and the noise of the cars. And he knows that Josh knows the reason why and that here is an end, just starting.

Josh just nods. And so does Toby. Sam's hand straightens out and lies flat against Toby's hip. He can hear Sam's breathing in his ear. They watch Josh's car pull out into the street, then away towards the White House. Toby sighs.

"Hey," Sam says.

"Hi."

"So we're walking?"

"Apparently."

"Okay."

"You should go after him, Sam. You shouldn't walk."

"Why not?"

Toby turns and in so doing pulls away from the press of Sam's hand. He raises his eyebrows. "Because you shouldn't be walking in the rain after -- "

"It was almost a year ago, Toby," Sam says, softly. "I'm fine."

"Go after him. There are still some cars, you can still catch a ride."

"I want to walk with you."

"You realise that when you do this you sound like a fifteen year old with a crush, don't you?" He means it to be teasing, but it comes out concerned, too serious, too much like the truth.

Sam smiles, and Toby knows it's charity. "Maybe. I still have my free will though, yes?"

"I have yet to find any foolproof way of extracting it."

"So I'll walk with you then. Unless you'd rather I didn't."

Toby shakes his head. " ... no. It's fine."

"Okay, then."

Toby sighs. Sam brushes his hand over the small of his back, half a 'let's go' gesture and half a caress, and Toby pulls away from him, into the street and the rain and the headlights. He doesn't check that Sam is following him because he can feel Sam's presence, just over his shoulder, checking the road in the same moment and the sound of his footsteps splashing in the puddles of rain. They set off, back to the White House, in silence.

"Why aren't you smiling?" Sam says, when they've been walking for perhaps five minutes.

"Huh?"

"He did it. It's done. Why aren't you happy?"

"I am happy."

"You don't look it."

"Well, I'm not ecstatic."

"But you could smile?"

"I'm wet through and walking back to my office with a ... With you."

"And this is not an appropriate occasion for happiness? After our boss, the President of the United States stepped up to the plate and made the stadium his own? After he hit back and gave the answer you wanted him to?"

"... I'm wet."

"I like the way you look when you're wet through, Toby. I don't know if that helps any."

"It should not surprise you to know that it does not."

"I'm wet too," Sam says, as though he knows that knowledge of his own suffering will be much more welcome news.

"You're a lunatic."

"I thought he was the lunatic?"

"You've been spending too much time with him. It's rubbed off."

"Why aren't you happy, Toby?"

"I'm ... fine."

"You really thought it was going to be answer B?"

"I ... I honestly wasn't sure."

Sam laughs a little, as though he can't believe such a shocking lack of faith from Toby. His right hand is rocking beside Toby's left, his fingers are stroking the cuff of his jacket. It's dark so he shouldn't care, it's dark so it shouldn't matter if he lets Sam's hand slip into his own and holds it all the way back to the office. No one would know. But he won't, and pulls his hand away from Sam's fingers and widens the distance between them as they walk. Sam doesn't say anything, or look at him with wide, hurt eyes. He just keeps on walking.

"I suppose you're going to tell me you knew he would do that?" he says, louder than he meant to, as if nothing happened.

"'A plain and simple faith', Toby."

"Have you been storing that up all day?"

"It was a tough pick between that and Hebrews 11.1. Kept me awake, actually."

He turns and stares. "When will you stop this?"

"Stop what? He did well! I'm happy we're still in the game, like you should be."

"Please don't tell me what I should think, Sam."

"It would be a bit of a waste, I agree," Sam says, softly.

"That wasn't it, Sam. That was just the beginning."

"At least it was a beginning."

"And not an end?"

"Yeah."

"Don't be so sure."

They're by the gate now and the darkness is heaviest there, under the trees and on the side of the street furthest from the tourists who are still milling about, at gone nine o'clock. Sam catches his hand this time, without pretence.

"I'm sorry you feel this way," he says and Toby is aware that this is a conversation they will have over and over; and that it is both about the announcement, the MS, the deceit and darkness, and not about that at all. That he suddenly wishes he could take it all back surprises him, and he realises he is holding tight to Sam's hand and rubbing his thumb over the vein that runs over his knuckles.

"I was happy tonight," Sam says.

"I know."

"I thought we did okay."

"We did."

"So if you don't want me to be ... happy, then I can do that."

"Because you know better?" Toby says, trying to smile.

Sam smiles, weakly. "Yes."

"Alright."

"I really do like the way you look when you're wet through, Toby."

"Bedraggled?"

"Handsome. I was going for 'handsome'."

"You're a lunatic."

"I think you must find that attractive."

"Possibly."

Sam pulls on his hand. "I think ... there's a chance, you know?"

Toby stares at him. He can smell rain and stress and his own anger. And Sam's cologne, which smells stronger in the rain. And he feels the benefit of the doubt pulling on his sleeve.

"Maybe."

"I think we should try."

Toby nods. "We should."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Sam leans in and Toby finds himself hoping that the cloak of shadow keeps them safe, that it is enough to have wrapped it around themselves to hide. Sam strokes the back of his hand across Toby's chin, picking up the rain settled in his beard on his skin. His eyes have filled with darkness and are no longer blue: triumph in the night; a young and fearless faith. Toby keeps his hands firmly wedged in his pockets. Sam leans in and kisses him, gently. His mouth is cold and the rain is running down his face, but he is happy. Toby touches his cheek as though it will crack like ice under the heat of his fingers and does not return the smile Sam gives him.

"Let's go in now," he says.

3.

They sit for a while after the news that the speech is locked. Doug excuses himself to go to bed; Connie went an hour ago; Leo is locked in conference with the President; CJ is, he thinks, on the porch, watching the stars she said. Toby sits at the head of the table running a knife he doesn't seem to realise is rather expensive and possibly irreplaceable into the oak surface again and again. Sam sits to his right hand, staring at the sheet of words which don't make any more sense to him, Josh knows, than they did when they first came from his pen. Josh sits opposite him, in the dark. Sam looks like he's waiting for something, possibly a word from his boss, Josh thinks; reprieve or promise or assurance that this won't be what it is, how it ends. Josh wishes he still had that kind of faith. Sam looks at Toby and Josh looks at Sam and Toby stares at the scores in the surface of the table.

They are locked there, in silence, until Sam gets up, pushing back his chair with a squeak that seems to rock the walls. Josh listens to his deep inhalation and closes his eyes.

"I'm going up."

"Okay," Toby says, softly.

Josh manages a "See ya, buddy," and winces from how fake it sounds.

"Goodnight then," Sam says, looking over his shoulder as he exits the room. Josh wishes he wouldn't. Josh knows what that look means even if no-one else does and he's embarrassed on Sam's behalf, because it feels so wrong for his faith to be caught up in something like this. And Josh doesn't know if it's because everything feels that little bit more wrong these days, because he scrutinises every decision he makes for the wrongdoing he knows is not there that Sam's love and Toby's indulgence of that love scream so loudly.

"Goodnight, Sam," he manages. Sam smiles. Toby just nods, and Sam retreats into the dark, his smile lost there too.

Josh takes a deep breath. A few deep breaths. He drums his fingers on the surface of the President's huge oak table. He opens his mouth --

"I know what you're going to say," Toby says. His voice is very quiet, the kind of quiet that for him is synonymous with 'danger-Will-Robinson'. Josh tries to smile, but it doesn't work.

"You do?"

"I think so, yes."

"Toby ... "

"Go ahead, Josh."

"It has to stop, Toby. Whatever it is, it has to stop." Josh makes his voice soft, as though he is waiting to extend forgiveness. And he hates the way it sounds; he hates having to do this at all.

"Yeah, I know."

"There're gonna be hearings and a grand jury, and we can't afford _anything_ ... anything to be wrong."

"I know, Josh."

"So, you have to move out of his house."

"How do you know -- "

"He told me."

"Okay."

"You have to move out. Go back to your place."

"I know."

"I mean right now, Toby. Or, when we get back, I mean. But I'm not going to ask -- "

"You're already asking," Toby says, quietly.

"I'm only asking what I need to. And you know why. This can't be what the thing is, Toby. The rest ... Well, it's not my business."

"No, it's not."

"But you need to do it right now."

"I already told him, Josh."

His tone is even enough that Josh cannot tell if the words are lies or truth, but he knows what he thinks. "Then why ... ?"

"I thought I'd let you get it all out."

"That's ... uncharacteristically generous of you."

"Well, that's how I'm feeling tonight."

"Toby, I -- "

Toby nods. "It's ... fine. It's fine."

"I'm sorry," Josh says, wondering if it sounds truthful, hoping that it does.

"Yeah."

"Toby -- "

"You should go. So that when they ask you, you have some deniability."

"Toby."

"It's okay, Josh."

"Look, this isn't the time for this, Toby. And if you're going to do -- "

"And when would be the _correct_ time?"

"Look, don't blame me for this, okay? You two ... you decided this."

"There wasn't a whole bunch of 'deciding' involved, actually."

"That should give you some clues about where you went wrong, then."

"You'd rather it was you, maybe?"

"No, I don't. And I'm kinda surprised you _do_. I'm surprised you let him -- "

Toby's laugh is a high sneer of sound. "Are you even listening to what you're saying right now? I _let_ him? That I, through a momentary lapse of sensible adult thought allowed Sam's infatuation to flatter me to the point where I took him to my bed and gave him the seeing-to he so richly deserved? Are you being serious?"

"You wanna tell me the real story, Toby? The full tale? Because I have to say, it couldn't be much more ridiculous - you stayed with him, rehabilitated with him, shared the damn apartment with him?"

"Say what you want to say, Josh."

"This is a one-time thing, that's what you're telling me?"

"I'm not explaining myself to you."

"I think you might have to, Toby. I think I might like some clarification on this, see if you can't come up with a better story this time. I think maybe you'll have a better time explaining it to me than to Leo. Explaining it to the President, Toby. You wanna go in there and explain this to him?"

"Just say it, Josh."

"Sam told me. He told me in January."

"Yeah."

"I told him he'd have to come up with a better story then and now I'm sitting here ... I'm sitting here and asking you the same thing."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't lie. He just didn't tell me the rest."

"Sin of omission. They're very popular right now."

"Toby -- "

"Just ask me, Josh. Just get it over."

"How long?"

"I can't remember."

"Toby."

"Really," he says, looking up, laughing that high liquid chuckle. It runs through Josh, almost frightening. "I can't remember when it started."

"After Rosslyn?"

"Yeah."

Josh sticks his right hand in his pocket, rattles the coins and keychain there, rubs the hangnail on his index finger against the joint of his thumb. "Toby, how long have ... The _physical_ ... "

"May."

"May?"

"Yeah."

"You don't really -- "

"It's true. You want a corroborating witness? He's asleep upstairs."

"I'm really supposed to believe that?"

"No, Josh, you can do whatever you'd like. If that includes leaving me alone, I'd be just fine with it."

"You've been sharing that bed in his apartment for five months and I'm supposed to believe you've been ... what? Chaste and proper? Toby? I'm really supposed to believe you haven't been fucking him since the midterms?"

"A month after he almost died?"

"You know what? It honestly wouldn't surprise me!"

"I'm glad to know I've made such a positive impression!"

"You took him, Toby. He was your responsibility. You came to me and you said: I'll take it from here. I've got him now. Was that code for get the hell away from my boyfriend?"

"I guess it was."

"I sat with him, two hours out of the surgery. Where were you?"

"I was busy washing his blood off my hands, Josh."

"Oh come _on_ \-- "

"You asked me. That's what I was doing. Oh, and my job. I was kinda busy with that as well."

"I don't think this is your optimum time for a lecture on professionalism, Toby."

"Be sure to let me know when that is, Josh."

"Toby, he's infatuated with you."

"He's thirty-two years old, Josh. I'm not his tenth grade teacher."

"Funny, because it feels about the same kind of level to me!"

"I can't believe you -- "

"Are you in love with him?" Josh says, louder than he meant to; his voice sharpened for the real question by a year's waiting. He watches Toby's head twist away from the word, as though from a blow. Toby stares down at the carpet. He rubs the joint of his thumb against his forehead and Josh listens to the sound of his breathing fill the room. He says nothing and Josh lets the silence whisper to him, and tell him what he already knew.

"Toby?"

He doesn't answer.

"Are you taking the Fifth?" Josh says, after a minute. He tries a smile; it can't hurt.

Toby allows a slow blink of his eyes and a curve of his lips. "I may have to."

"Nah. You won't," Josh says. His hand touches Toby's shoulder and the pressure becomes a squeeze before he can stop it. "You won't."

Toby smiles, to himself Josh thinks. "I don't ... It's not easy to say." He sighs, then takes in a full breath. "It's tempting fate," he says, looking up, with his hands open.

"Well, I'm not the best person to talk to about that."

"Good that I'm not asking you for therapy, then."

"Yeah, that is ... good."

Toby sighs again, heavier. "He doesn't understand."

"Tell him."

"You haven't been listening at all this whole time, right?"

"No, I'm serious."

"Yeah," Toby says, with his fingers rubbing hard in his beard, breaking up the tone of his voice.

"You should tell him. I mean, you know I don't -- "

"No, you really don't."

"But, you know, I hear things. I have ... experience, knowledge. "

"Josh, this is what your mother told you before you went to college, isn't it?"

"No, it's not."

"Yeah?"

"It's actually Donna's thing. She has a list."

"I'm sure she does."

"But, you should tell him."

"Why?"

"_Why_?"

"Never really made any difference before."

"It's Sam, Toby."

"Yeah."

"You have to tell him, and then you have to stop."

"Yeah."

"I am sorry, Toby."

"Write him a note?" Toby says after a minute, his face dark, impassive.

Josh grins, or tries to. "Whatever works for you, buddy."

"Get out."

"Yeah," Josh says, smiling. "See you in the morning."

*

He knocks so quietly as to render the effort pointless. He and Sam and Josh and CJ are in rooms far enough away from the main part of the house that Toby is confident he will not wake the President or Mrs Bartlet with the sound, but he can't be sure. He hisses through the door: "Sam!" then opens it and winces from its squeak.

Sam is sleeping: lying on his side with the covers pulled up close to his chin, curled away from the door. Toby sits on the side of the bed and lays a hand he is sure must be too heavy on Sam's arm.

"Toby?"

"Hey."

"What ... ? Is there something -- ? Has something happened?"

"No. Shhhh."

"Toby, what the hell?"

"Sshhhh."

"It's the middle of the night. It is the middle of the night, right?"

"I just wanted to see you."

Sam frowns and smiles at the same time. "Toby?"

"I just ... I just want to see you."

"I don't have to go outside again, do I?"

"No, Sam."

He nods. "Okay."

"I'm ... sorry. I shouldn't have woken you -- "

"Toby, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"It's nothing when you wake me in the middle of the night? Tell me what's wrong."

Toby sighs. "I ... missed you. I miss you."

"I knew you'd be no good at this. Seriously, it's like your sex drive is -- "

"Sam!"

He grins. "I'm right then?"

"Maybe."

"It's a big enough bed for two. If you like."

Toby rolls his eyes. "God."

Sam turns in the bed. Toby knows well enough that he is naked under the sheets and he swallows, trying to push desire back down his throat. It doesn't make any difference at all. Sam puts his hand on Toby's thigh and strokes the creases out of the fabric of his pants.

"I missed you too," he says, softly.

"Yeah."

"You want to ... you know?"

Toby nods. "Yeah."

He undresses with Sam watching him and it's just like the first time over again: bed because neither of them can bend the world to their will; the warmth of someone else because it's getting so dark outside; love here because there's none over there. Toby wonders how healthy it is to have built a relationship, such as it is, out of the conditions of deceit and wrongdoing that they have been living in for what seems like longer than just a few months. It wasn't meant to be so, he's sure. Toby is sure he remembers prose that made his heart stop with beauty and the promise of laying a road out from those words - South Carolina to the White House, perfect steps, paved with diaphanous words like 'liberty'. He doesn't recall what that feels like, and when he tries to reach for the memory it disappears out of his hand.

He undresses with Sam's eyes on him, like it's the first time.

In the bed, Sam strokes his hair, the strips of his sideburns where the hair is frizzy and grey and shows up the paleness of his skin. His hands are slow and wondering, as they always seem to be. Sam treats every time like the first time, which is usually something Toby finds worthy of amusement at his lover's expense, but not tonight. Toby finds the strength to close his eyes and let Sam touch him; give himself away if not with ease then at least with willing. He sinks his head into the pillow and lets Sam stroke his mouth, his beard, the hollows and rounds of his neck and shoulders. He lets Sam kiss the place that is usually hidden by the pendent on its golden chain. He lets Sam suck the skin of the sensitive spot beneath his left nipple which is usually forbidden to him and opens his eyes and matches the kid's smile.

"Hello."

"Hey."

"Is there something you want to tell me, Toby?"

"No."

"Okay."

"Do that again?" he says. He wanted it to be an order, and doesn't understand how it came out as a request, almost a supplication. He is shaken by how tender and unsure and unloved his voice sounds.

Sam nods. "Sure, Toby. Close your eyes."

Toby doesn't know where his submission comes from, what allows him to lie face down in Sam's bed with a pillow under his hips and tender hands holding him round the waist and forget everything in the middle of this best of sensations. He thinks it might be the last of his gentler side; has a distinct suspicion that the better parts of his nature will be in storage for a little while. He thinks that he wants, maybe, to give this last to Sam, because he deserves it more: fearless faith and a face that doesn't look as young now as it did even six months ago. Letting Sam fuck him is a better option than grieving and hearing the soft sounds of his release a good enough compensation - the dying rewards of his last wish, because it seems to matter to him that Sam is happy: a one night only deal.

4.

"Subpoenas?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck."

Toby raises his eyebrows. "Profanity suits you, you know. Colour in your cheeks."

"I think I'm a little scared, you know?"

"Yeah."

"Are you scared?"

"How do you want me to answer that?"

"Truthfully?"

Toby stares at him a minute. "Yeah. I am."

"I don't want to sound like a Hallmark moment here, but ... "

"What?"

"At least we've got each other. I mean, the four of us. Josh and CJ too."

"Yeah," Toby says, knowing that he doesn't mean anything of the kind.

*

Days go by and nothing is said. Fall deepens and Sam starts to smell winter in the air. The subpoenas aren't coming for them yet, but the Republicans are and they've got both barrels pointed at the head. He wonders how it is that everyone seems to be smiling, whether this selective blindness is something they all sent away for and didn't tell him about or invite his shiny dollar into the pot. He winces away from the President's jokes, feels his fragile assurance slipslide on the shining surface of CJ's much more profound ease, lets his worries shatter against Josh's confidence and listens hard for the cracks in Leo's laugh. With Toby, he knows better. In fact, with Toby he doesn't want to listen and watch. With Toby, he knows days are numbered.

He stays over less now; it feels less like he lives at Sam's place and not his own and some nights when they say goodnight it really is just that, not code for _I'll see you in half an hour_. He is tender and quiet, and that alone worries Sam. There are more nights like the one in his bed in the Bartlet house, but even more when they only lie together: Sam's head on his chest or Toby's chin resting on Sam's shoulder, curled round his back.

Sam is waiting for the conversation which starts like this: _we can't do this anymore_. The words don't come, but those which replace them are almost as bad. Because, one night near the end of November, huddled together in the cold of his bed just as Sam is starting to regret the decision not to replace the sheets with a quilt, Toby whispers in his ear,

"I should tell you ... "

"What?" Sam says, into the pillow, with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped round his chest.

"I should have told you months ago."

"What, Toby?"

"That I love you."

It is easy to see goodbye coming in those words. And yet he still smiles. He doesn't turn in Toby's arms, doesn't say anything back - he hardly needs to these days; he knows. But the finality that those words have, those three words in particular out of all the ones he might have chosen, are not a promise or a pledge, unless it is of an end. Sam closes his eyes and lets Toby stroke the small hairs at the back of his neck. He smiles again as Toby kisses the pale skin of the rise of his shoulder. He reaches back for his lover's hand, holds it tight: some small protection against the day. Sam goes to sleep with a promise to replace the one he has just gained and lost; he promises himself, and Toby though he will not want it, that he will take a chance on hope, in the morning that will come.


End file.
